In a chart showing Senate office spending, Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, two California Democrats, top the list.
But you wouldn’t know that from the tweets of Washington Post writers Aaron Blake and Chris Cillizza, who went straight for the top-spending Republicans on the list — Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio — as did the Post’s online story.
Here are the Senate offices that are costing America the most money.(HINT: Ted Cruz is involved.) http://t.co/AE155XYm5I
— Chris Cillizza (@CillizzaCNN) August 5, 2014
Cruz, Rubio among the most expensive Senate offices http://t.co/6qnF4npA5b (from @pbump) pic.twitter.com/lavOnMc7uy
— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) August 5, 2014
Blake, to his credit, responded to people pointing out the presumed bias by saying they were noteworthy because of their potential presidential candidacy in 2016.
@RobLockwood Yep. The post mentions size of state in the first graph. Cruz and Rubio are interesting because they are potential 2016ers.
— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) August 5, 2014
Blake also blamed Twitter’s character count for the issue.
@RobLockwood Yes, 140 characters isn’t great for context. That’s why we encourage people to read the actual posts.
— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) August 5, 2014
After some more back and forth on Twitter, Blake finally tweeted that Rubio and Cruz’s spending was below that of the two California Democrats.
The Post also edited the headline from “Cruz, Rubio among the most expensive Senate offices,” to “Here are the states whose senators are costing you the most money.”
The URL for the article — which captures the original headline — even mentions Cruz and Rubio but not Feinstein or Boxer. The main photo for the article is of Cruz, even though his office is the fourth-biggest spender.
Kind of hard to pretend that’s not biased.
